When will Wantage learn?

"Those who have not learned from history are doomed to repeat it."

When will the "learning" begin and "repeating" stop in Wantage?

The saga of Lake Neepaulin began when a chicken farmer decided to build a pond on his property. As time went on, homes were built around the pond. Septic regulations and inspections were lax, if at all. If the allegations about raw sewage draining into LN are true, Wantage taxpayers are about to learn another expensive lesson. When Wantage assumed ownership of the lake, the taxpayers, instead of FOLN, got stuck with the liability these allegations threaten if swimming is allowed, and someone gets sick or CLAIMS he got sick from the lake. The committee should have tested all the septic systems near the lake before exposing taxpayers and themselves. It isn't that they didn't know about the allegations.

If not rural politics of expected immunity from criticism or laziness to do independent research, I don't know how to characterize the committee's insistence to stick its nose where it never belonged, dragging protesting citizens into the fray they crafted. For eight years, the committee could and should have washed its hands of meddling in a "Buyer Beware" situation, but in a macho show of force, former committeeman Bill DeBoer and current committeeman Ron Bassani lectured the protesting taxpayers instead, taking to the press and Wantage website to reinforce their insults.

LN has been one expensive scam after another. In 2012-13, the committee dragged taxpayers into a "Compliance Plan" for two years, where a certain segment of Wantage taxpayers were forced to bail out LN properties by having a portion of LN taxes transferred to the tax bills of other Wantage taxpayers. Melissa Rockwell proclaimed — and they accepted at face value — property values were falling in LN. We now know it was a hoax because property values were falling everywhere in Wantage and the county, but that hoax cost me $500 each year for two years and other taxpayers were scammed as well.

Although Wantage taxpayers are paying $1.2 million for repairs to the dam, the transparency of how the $987,000 was spent remains a secret.

This committee, with former Committeeman Bill DeBoer, has divided Wantage. He still comes to meetings acting as if he is a committeeman, speaks over people, out of turn and out of his seat.

Ron Bassani acts as if he is still the mayor at committee meetings, and his continuous self-congratulations about the great job the committee thinks it is doing make it difficult to be polite.

The appropriate time for him to speak is to give a committee report, but there he falls short, as do the others. Be proud of what? Wantage committeemen collecting almost twice as much as counterparts, $6.000, for what they don't do, if the agenda is a barometer, and our tax bills, a testament.

Ann Smulewicz
Wantage